Weight loss support with a spiritual element. I will keep you posted on my journey in the hopes that you will join me in becoming the person God wants you to be. Don't worry about being religious. Come as you are.

Monday, May 28, 2012

***And when you've carefully examined every feature of that soldier's face, stand upstraight and tall and smile your best smile. Thank that soldier, because it does whatsome cannot or will not. It defends what it believes to be right with it's very life.

But more important, it defends a perfect stranger - you.

And when you see a flag covered casket, stand in memorium of all the soldier's facesyou've examined. For when one of them falls, they all fall. And when one of themstands, they all stand.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Don't let the fear of the time it will take toaccomplish something stand in the way of your doing it.The time will pass anyway; we might just aswell put that passing time to the best possible use.Earl Nightingale

This time tomorrow 24 hours will have passed and we will all be one day older. A day will have passed that we cannot reclaim. We will be one day closer to finding out what is on the other side of the grave.

Do we spend our days "putting out fires"; attending to the squeakiest wheel; being on the receiving end of life?

Have we disqualified ourselves from successful, healthy living?

What disqualifies us? Is our obesity what makes us think we somehow don't measure up and therefore do not deserve success? Or is it what we hide behind so that we don't risk failure?

I have good news for all of us. This time tomorrow all of us can look back on the past 24 hours and know what it feels like to be a success. We are qualified; we have the skills; we know what to do. The obesity has nothing to do with our qualifications to lose weight. We are all qualified to lose weight and keep it off. Is there anyone out there who doesn't have the skills and the tools necessary to do this?

Just as we would not use a hammer to get a screw out of a board; we cannot use old habits and worn out emotions for losing weight. How long would it take to get a screw out of a board with a hammer? Answer: about as long as it will take to lose our weight with old habits and worn out emotions.

Change your habits. Emotions are not reasons to eat; that only adds another problem. We don't eat refined sugar anymore. We eat the foods that are the tools for losing weight. We drink the water and we exercise because this next 24 hours belongs to us and the success that awaits us is there because we were proactive; because we used the right tools; and because we are the ones who chose success.

This next 24 hours will pass. They will pass regardless of what we do or do not do. We will all reflect. We get to choose if that reflection is rewarding or whether it is full of regrets. Each choice we make in the next 24 hours will contribute to what we feel this time tomorrow.

How do you want to feel at that time? What are you willing to do to make it happen?

When these people return it is usually at a higher weight than before this break that they needed. My question is this - are we ever better off after the break than we were before it? I guess I have two questions - is this just a way to protect ourselves emotionally from facing facts? Was this break just a form of self-sabotage? (OK so three questions).

Can you see how good we are at playing games and fooling ourselves? Practice makes perfect.

Our "breaks" come when we go back to doing what we know best - we know how to be obese and sedentary. It's comfortable for us because we can do it so well. Becoming a new person is threatening and carries with it responsibilities and expectations. This can be more frightening than we realize.

Let's take a big, long, permanent break from obesity rather than from the things that will overcome it for the rest of our lives.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

There is a longer post coming tomorrow but I wanted to share with you a newfound cooking method - pressure cooking. I cooked a 6 lb. chicken in my new pressure cooker with seasonings, onions, and celery. In 45 minutes it was fall off of the bone tender. The pressure cooker left it moist and wonderful. I have the broth in the refrigerator now so that I can get the fat off the top and use that wonderful broth in another dish.

By the "weigh" I weighed 186 yesterday morning. I weighed 188.5 before my quilt retreat about a month ago. I am still battling my blood pressure. It was too high at my DOT physical for ATM Solutions where I work. The first reading was 148/104 - bummer. When I failed the first test my top number was 186 I believe - big bummer. The bottom number has been normal here at home and that bottom number reads normal now. I have taken my blood pressure machine in to my doctor so they could compare it to their readings and they said it was OK. This is war. I have had three different families of blood pressure medicine with terrible side effects so I stopped taking them. The beta blockers gave me a horrible cough, the calcium channel blockers made my feet and ankles swell, and the last ones caused my heart to beat so hard and fast it hurt. I also blacked out. ENOUGH. I looked on the internet and beet root juice was recommended so I am doing that. I make a "tonic" from honey/apple cider vinegar/garlic and have some of that twice a day. I take L-arginine and take an herbal blood pressure formula. I have lost over 40 lb. and exercise. I am drinking plenty of water.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

I am going to try and get one post in a week. I have literally been working outside in the yard until dark each day. I need to be cloned so I can get it all done. I have cancelled Jazzercise for the summer. I am going to get in 3 days of step aerobics to maintain the muscle I have developed. I am carrying a watering can in each hand around the yard - that should count for something. I ran the tiller today, planted corn and beans, filled some flower pots and pulled some weeds - that is exercise don't you think?

I did have a thought about a topic.

Have you ever considered how two people can look at the same situation and have two different perceptions of the situation? Let's consider a family reunion as I imagine many of us will have a couple of those this summer; I know I will. One person lives in fear of the day and the failure that he/she feels is sure to happen. Another person won't get all stressed out, but consider it just another day, and will do the best he/she can seeing the day as a chance to prove to him or herself that control is the rule of each day of eating not just at a family reunion.

A New Year's Eve party would be another example of one person thinking "What's the use; I might as well enjoy (?) this last day of the year and start tomorrow getting serious. Another person will see it as a chance to enjoy the company of friends - this person won't be starting over tomorrow because that person didn't stop the new lifestyle for a party.The new lifestyle can include a drink or two or none at all. The new lifestyle can enjoy an evening without losing control and begin a 3-day binge.

How do you perceive exercise? Is it a chore? Is it something you do as a part of your routine without stopping to consider if you are in the mood or if there is something you would rather do and skip it?

Have your perceptions changed? We all have to work on ourselves and how we perceive this new undertaking of becoming healthy and being the best version of ourselves we can be.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

This is the arbor that our youngest son, Isaac, made for me for Mother's Day. I love yard art.

He also made one for me last year for my birthday/Christmas gift. I want another one this year for birthday/Christmas. I am going to put it at the end of the "tunnel" made out of wire mesh that I showed in an earlier post of the yard. I will plant a clematis on each side of it. Isaac does computer aided drafting so he knows how to design things like this.

My posts will be few and far between for a while - I am working out in the yard whenever I can!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

I have read several people's blogs that say they weigh themselves so that they will know if they have gained any weight or not.

How would we know if we gained weight if we didn't weigh in? Do we already know if we have gained weight or not? How do we know if we have gained weight or not unless we weigh? Do we need the scale to validate what we already know? Why can't we start correcting our poor choices without weighing?

I know I have avoided weighing because I KNEW it wouldn't be good news. How about you? Why do we need to know our weight before we straighten up? As long as we don't weigh then we can continue being out of control. Ignorance is bliss.

We need the scale's report so that we know how much we need to punish ourselves? We can choose to NOT eat poorly without the disciplinarian scale.

It's a mind game we play. It's a part of our cycle. Diet/Lose/Mess up/Overeat/Weigh/Diet/Lose/Mess up/Overeat/Weigh. The scale provides the ammunition we need. If we didn't have a set of scales, would we ever get back with our plan? We don't know how to eat today if we don't know how much we weigh?

Think of how you would feel without the scales. I know people say it is a tool. They say it is for accountability. Be that as it may, are we giving the scale too much credit for changing our behavior?

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Still obsessed with weight? Are you terrified to stop the constant monitoring of your weight? What if there is a gain? How will I know if I don't weigh? I need to know if I lost weight so I will know if I am a good person or not. We usually aren't happy with a loss because it usually isn't enough or we think we deserved a bigger loss.

Shouldn't we concentrate on what we are doing rather than on the scale? The scale doesn't change a thing. How many of us sneak up on the scale - we try to see how much we can get by with? Poor eating may not catch up with us until the next week so we can't think H'mmmm I overate a couple times and still lost weight - wonder if I can get by with that again. I know it can be a wake-up call. If we know there is going to be a gain shouldn't our focus be on the actions, the behaviors that we know have caused the gain? If there is a loss, we know why. If there is a gain, we know why as well. If we know it is our TOM why get upset about it? Maybe we have been overeating and as luck would have it our TOM gives us a ready made reason. Some women do suffer I know. I had a student who suffered terrible PMS and would not even go on trips with our student organization because she knew she would be miserable. She wrapped herself in a rug and shot herself when she was very young. This is an extreme case. I know some women have to deal with out of whack hormones.

I have read where people are afraid to weigh because they KNOW it's not going to be good news. It's going to be hard to face that number when it pops up because we will immediately have to calm ourselves down, a little rationalizing will be thrown in, and we will have to start getting back to where we were so we can start losing again.

If our actions are the main thing, the weight will come off. Our plans should revolve around our behaviors and what we do - period. We can then weigh when we think about it or just when we feel like it. I rarely weigh myself. I don't care. I know that if I am acting like a slim person, one day I will be a slim person. It doesn't matter to me how quickly I get there - just so I am heading in that direction.

Breakfast was a raisin bran muffin.

I had almond butter with flaxseed on a banana for lunch and some home made granola.

Supper was a hard boiled egg, a piece of cheese, and Greek yogurt with chia seeds, stevia, and sugar free jelly.

I am going to make a point of eating more vegetables tomorrow.

I drank my water today and had my Jazzercise class this evening. I also did yard work today. I will have step aerobics in the morning.

Let's think about our actions and let the fruits just happen. (They will)